Week Two Highlights and Plateaus

Our second week of study was better than the first. I felt as if the rust was shaken off and I was really diving in to the book I was studying. That being said, I was beginning to believe something I had heard from English to Chinese learners: the mythical plateaus.

To plateau is a leveling off of progress. There is obvious progress when it comes to learning new vocabulary and grammar structures, but this sort of plateau is in terms of overall fluency.

In my opinion the first several months of Chinese study can be categorized as the Baby stage. You learn sporadic vocab and can spit it out appropriately on occasion. Speaking with other Chinese speakers is minimal.

Once you break through this level, and establish a certain level of fluency, at least in my experience, there is a great deal of relief. You can flex your language muscles a bit in conversation, and understand passing dialogues between native speakers. You can impress people. It feels good.

But after this first burst of confidence, you may find, as I have, that while you learn the new vocab and grammar structures, and can use them at will, the overall fluency and confidence just isn't there yet. At any rate, this realization compelled me to study even harder, and, more importantly, speak more with my Chinese friends and teachers. Here's to busting through another plateau...eventually.

In our second official week, we had a little more discretion when it came to spending time outside of class, since CLI gave us fewer activities. The ones that they did give us, were great. My personal favorites were the Calligraphy and Chinese painting classes. As any of you who know me on a personal level are already aware, I am not an artist. I went into these sessions with this in mind, yet still applied myself and tried to create something beautiful, lasting, and breathtaking. I wanted to create art. Well, this is what I came up with:

Close enough right? Another cool activity was visiting a local private elementary school where they taught in Mandarin and English concurrently. Chinese parents are obsessed with giving their children an early advantage when it comes to early education, and look for anyway up in China's now competitive educational environment. This school was one such place. The kids did not seem to mind all the pressure and expectations surrounding them, and were happy and goofy, just like kids should be. It was a real pleasure to meet some of them and see how they studied.

After the week of studying we began preparing for our second weekend excursion to the rural town of Longsheng...

Yangshuo: Take Three, Part Two

After a good nights rest we all had some breakfast and prepared to bike and hike in Yangshuo's stifling summer heat.

We arrived at the bike shop full of enthusiasm and excitement. I knew that Chinese bikes are several rungs below American bikes in terms of quality, so I rigorously tested my bike, had the brakes tightened, and seat adjusted to perfection.

Our classmate, Rainman, decided to ride a tandem bike with one of the CLI interns. Tandem bikes are never a good idea. The novelty of them may be entertaining for about ten seconds but they soon become bulky, dangerous, relationship-destroying hunks of metal. Naturally, our group raised no protest at Rainman's request and allowed him to proceed unhindered.

With our new bikes in tow we headed out to see the country side. Just as we rounded the corner onto the main road I attempted to gear up only to hear a clang and a pop, and feel my pedals go limp. Great.

My bike was still functioning, but as I explained to the group, I was putting in sixth gear effort and receiving second gear output. I looked like a hamster on a wheel my legs were moving so fast. According to those around me my chain on my bike was still attached to the real wheel, but was so loose it was hanging limp.

Two minutes into the ride and I was drenched in sweat.

My classmates were all very compassionate, and even offered to carry my backpack, but this was my burden alone. My professor, Ken Stiles, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing and calling me Chainman.

After the scenic ride, we stopped for lunch in a generously air-conditioned restaurant before hiking Yangshuo's famous moon hill. It's a tough, grueling, uphill hike, and added to my exhaustion. After returning to the hotel I collapsed into a sweaty heap, showered, and prepared for our evening activity: Zhang Yimou's Impressions.

Zhang Yimou was the director of China's Olympic opening ceremony in 2008 and has damn near legendary status on the mainland. This particular show has been running for years and has much critical acclaim. This was my second time seeing it.

Upon arriving at the amphitheater, the sky opened up. It started raining buckets on our heads. Our jackets and umbrellas were all stored conveniently on the bus, a mile or so away. We quickly donned the paper thin ponchos provided by the amphitheater and stood under a tiny canopy questioning our commitment to this show.

We decided to bail. Unfortunately, the tickets were bought and paid for and, this is China, so no refunds. Besides, they said, it will stop raining soon and the show will start.

Soaked to the bone, we sat in our equally moist seats and enjoyed the best Zhang Yimou had to offer.

Wet, tired, and defeated, we got on our bus and headed back to Guilin in preparation of our second week of classes.

Yangshuo Round Three, Part One

Our first weekend excursion was to the small tourist town of Yangshuo. As my loyal readers will already know I have been there twice before and enjoyed it very much.

This time, we had a four hour river float down to the town and two full days to enjoy ourselves.

Coming right off the heels of Roger's birthday bash, a few of us were feeling a little worse for wear when we were rallied to CLI's ground floor at 8am.

Despite the setbacks we all made it on to the boat in one piece and proceeded downriver. On my previous journeys to Yangshuo I had taken a bus and a bamboo raft down the river, this go around, however, our group was too big so we were forced to take a river cruise liner (they insisted it wasn't a fat joke, but I know).

The cruise liner was nice, but it moved fast and lost a lot of the feel the bamboo raft had. At any rate, the river scenery was breathtaking, and it was great seeing the rest of the group experience it for the first time.

When we reached Yangshuo most of the group had fully recovered from the previous evening but everyone was tired and needed a break. Some went out shopping but most took a snooze in the hotel. Eventually we all met up for dinner at a Chinese/western hybrid restaurant.

From my previous experience I knew that ordering pseudo-western cuisine in China only led to a long road of disappointment and digestive problems. I steered clear and ordered a beef and peanuts dish and some dumplings. My classmates, in their naïveté, nearly to a man ordered a western dish. Here's what they got:

A pizza so small that it might have satisfied a 3-year old child if it weren't for the cardboard crust and lack of sauce. A plate of banana pancakes that more closely resembled an incredibly thinly cut banana crepe. A turkey burger which, while correctly placed in between two buns, had the consistency of mashed potatoes and not a lick of moisture etc etc.

After our dinner we headed to an old jaunt of mine, Monkey Jane's hostel/rooftop bar. We decided to take it easy due to residual feelings of remorse regarding the previous night and because we knew we would be biking and hiking the entire following day. Despite all this, we had the good fortune of arriving 15 minutes before the end of happy hour.

We decided to order 10 big bottles of beer between the eight of us. It's only 3.5% alcohol after all. Well, four out of our group decided to head in early leaving the last four of us with the remaining 3 bottles. Being in a communist country we decided to split the drinks equally.

Progress was slow. The night was wearing on and we had one large bottle of Tsingdao sitting on the table mocking us. Two of our students, one I will call Rainman, and the other I will call Scooter, decided to split it. Scooter would drink first.

Scooter is the quiet type. You're lucky if you get ten words out of the guy in a day, and they are almost in response to a direct question.

Scooter picks up this big bottle of beer and starts drinking, slow at first, but increasing in intensity and speed as he went. He just didn't stop. We started beating the table like wild animals and chanting his real name off of the rooftop. After a solid 25 seconds of chugging Scooter set the beer down with only an inch or so left. We cheered, high-fived him, and prepared to exit the bar for some much needed rest.

All that was left was to watch Rainman polish off the remainder and walk back to our hotel. Rainman confidently grabbed the bottle and threw it up to his lips. After Scooter's inspiring performance Rainman proceeds to choke on one inch of beer and couldn't even finish it. After a good laugh a third student finished the bottle and we left to prepare for our day of biking and hiking.

Week one, what jet lag?

As I mentioned in my previous posts, we had very little time to adjust before we were thrown into the grinder that is Chinese class. On top of all this, CLI arranged activities for us pretty much every day. These varied in nature from hiking up some of Guilin's Karst mountains, visiting a dental equipment factory, to ping pong tournaments (more on that later).

On most of these activities we were accompanied by CLI's interns, collectively known as, "the pengyous," which means friend in Chinese. Most of them are students at the local university where I attended classes last year. It is always great to meet new people, and they were all very helpful and welcoming, but I did feel a little overwhelmed the first week. Maybe it was the combination of jet lag and the mental fatigue associated with shaking the rust off of my Chinese, but during the first week of activities I felt absolutely exhausted. Making things even tougher was the fact that I could converse with the pengyous in Mandarin, which, while awesome because it validates all the hard work I've put into the language, and a great opportunity to practice, was mentally grueling. But hey, if it was too easy, it wouldn't be fun, and looking back, it was definitely beneficial.

At the end of week one I was very tired and ready to cut loose a bit. I was also excited to see my classmates that are of a legal age sample the local Chinese fare.

In addition to a general consensus that everyone could use a little fun, our first Friday, a student, known in this blog as Rainman, was celebrating his 21st birthday. To celebrate we hopped into cabs and headed to a local KTV, or karaoke joint.

Chinese karaoke is much different from American karaoke. For one, it's a much more intimate affair, as each party rents out individual rooms with individual karaoke systems. From this room, you can order drinks and food, select English or Chinese songs to sing along to, and just generally have a good time.

The going rate for the KTV's drinks is pretty steep however (and by steep that means $2USD, per beer...ridiculous, I know) so me and another student, who I'll call Snake decided to bring our own, more economical supplies into the KTV.

As I may have mentioned on here before, the Chinese liquor called bai jiu or, white alcohol, is incredibly strong, and incredibly off putting. That being said, for the money, it is damn efficient.

With our bottle of bai jiu in tow it was time to officially kick off Rainman's birthday. Shots were poured, tears were shed (literally, this stuff doesn't mess around), and off we went.

After a few rounds of drinks pretty much everyone mustered the courage to sing a few songs. The highlights of the night were probably Snake's rendition of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean," or every girl in our room collectively absolutely belting Shania Twain's "My Heart Will Go On." Heavy stuff.

After a few hours of drinks and embarrassing ourselves in front of our friends and teachers, we headed to Guilin's premier night club to keep Roger's party rolling. After an hour or so of dancing, watching a bizarre performance, and drinking a little more, we decided to catch a cab and call it a night. We had to wake up early to head to Yangshuo after all...

Welcome back, you're fat.

You have to love how blunt Chinese people are. After three and a half months of eating Chinese food and exercising consistently, I was lean and mean upon returning to the states. But, after my touch'em all tour of America's fast food establishments, a decline in exercise, and a generally sedentary lifestyle, I had gained around 10 lbs since I got back. Naturally, the first thing all my old teachers and friends said upon seeing me was, "you got fat!" "Look at your face, look at how fat you are!" None of this was done out of malice but just to cajole me a bit. Like I said, they are a blunt people.

After the teasing was over it was great to catch up with my old teachers and friends, and, of course, to eat my favorite Chinese foods that I had been missing. Because of our debacle in Hong Kong, we only had a day to adjust an prepare for our first week of classes.

Our classes are small group style classes, typically two or three students to one teacher. The vast majority of our group had never studied before so the five of them were lumped into the beginner class. Three others had studied some, but not a lot, so they were placed at intermediate level. Myself, and Nate, have both studied for upwards of two years (on and off) so we were at the highest level of our group.

We took twenty hours a week of classes. Our Mandarin courses were every day from 820am-1230pm. They were two, two hour classes with one ten minute break in the middle. It was grueling but useful. This time, I wasn't able to get my two professors from last fall so I got three new professors to study with.

The first is a man in his late thirties by the name of Clock. By appearance he is tall by Chinese standards but very lean. He has long flowing black hair and usually wears long sleeve plaid shirts (even with the sweltering summer heat, which is nuts).

Clock by many rubrics is one of the most interesting people you will ever meet. He is the lead singer of a Chinese hard rock band, a very spiritual Daoist, and has some very interesting stories regarding his misspent youth. I loved having class with Clock because we would often go off on tangents and forget all about the text book and discuss anything from Ukraine and Syria to how to properly fix China's education system.

My other professors, Catherine and Zie (pronounced like the letter "Z") were both female and both very good teachers. I was pleasantly surprised with Zie as she was new to CLI and has less teaching experience than most of the other teachers. Her classes were also very interesting. For our final class, she organized a series of debates for Nate, herself, and I to compete in. The debates were: whether it's more important to get married for money or love, whether American food was better than Chinese food (not much progress was made by either side in that one) and whether English is a more difficult language than Chinese (it is).

All in all I was very pleased with all of my professors and progress this time around. I was able to study an entire book of Chinese, containing 10 chapters and about 400 new characters. Remembering them will take a little work though...

Back Like A Bad Penny

If it were too easy, it wouldn't be fun

After my first experiences traveling to and around China, I've grown to love the above phrase. It's a sort of Murphy's law that when you are traveling at any distance in China something will go wrong and you will need to be adaptable. I knew all of this, my classmates and new travel companions did not.

Our journey to the Middle Kingdom began at 4am on a Saturday. We were supposed to fly from Reagan to Toronto, have a two or three hour layover and then make the long haul to Hong Kong. Supposed to. Upon arriving in Toronto our connecting flight had already been delayed, which usually wouldn't be a big deal, but our connection in Hong Kong was only a thirty minute window that had just evaporated. I knew we were going to have to adapt, and my classmates were slowly realizing the truth to my adage.

After three consecutive delays of around an hour each in Toronto we finally boarded the always miserable 15+ hour flight across the pacific. We knew upon arrival that our best laid plans had already turned to feces and hit the rotating oscillator, but at that point we were all so ready to stretch our legs it didn't matter. A little stretching later (the distance it took to walk from plane to terminal, to be exact), we were greeted by a small, cheerful Air Canada employee with a small sign with what would have been our connecting flight number. She quickly explained that we had missed the last flight to Guilin for the day, and would have to try again tomorrow. Since all of this was Air Canada's fault, they were putting us up in a hotel in Kowloon for the night.

So with little hesitation we filled out entry forms and sauntered out into the incredibly humid Hong Kong air. They put us on a charter bus with other passengers who shared our misfortune. However, in a stroke of pure genius they had put pretty much everyone on the bus in different hotels. Of course, ours was the last stop. A two hour bus tour of Kowloon later, we arrived at our swanky new digs.

The front desk gave us our keys, explained that our evening buffet was complimentary and arranged a shuttle for us in the afternoon. Air Canada had decided to leave our tickets in the exact same time slot, just moved back a day. Jet lagged, dirty, and tired, we ate dinner, showered, and resolved to venture out into the metropolis of Hong Kong in the morning. Weary from an already long journey, I informed my loved ones and CLI of our misfortune and slipped into a deep and comfortable sleep. Two hours later I was awoken by our room phone going off over and over. I looked at my cell phone to check the time and found that another in our group was quicker on the draw and had answered already; they had moved our flight to 10:50 in the morning.

Once I had shaken the rust off my eyes, wiped the drool on my face, and regained full control of my senses, I realized that the hotel and airline were still planning to shuttle us to the airport. Problem was, they only started shuttles at 900am. Considering checking in, security, boarding, and our previous city wide bus tour, I decided to have a word with the staff at the front desk.

After about a half an hour of explanation and phone calls made and received, I was informed that cabs would pick us up at 830am. I went back upstairs, informed the group, and fell back asleep.

The next day everyone was punctual, and we convened in the lobby to catch our cabs. The cabs were punctual as well, but, there were only two of them. Now, having been in China before, I saw 9 people in two cabs as not only possible, but damn comfortable. So I told Roger, a classmate of mine who had taken a little Chinese, that he would ride shotgun in one and I would ride shotgun in the other, just in case. My classmates, however, were less accustomed to Chinese space requirements than I, and decided to order and wait for another cab.

This would have been fine but it split our group further, and with no means to communicate, we just sat at the front of the airport waiting for the third and final cab to finally arrive. Once it did, we headed to the Dragon Air desk to exchange our tickets and get our boarding passes. What I thought would be a simple process turned into another dilemma as they incessantly typed away with each ticket for several minutes before settling it and sending one of us on our way. Tick tock tick...

Because there were two lines helping us and because it was so slow we decided to use the tried and true buddy system. Allie and I went first through security and breezed our way to our boarding gate. Our classmates had 45 minutes to follow suit. Allie and I sat at the boarding gate expecting to receive waves of our classmates two at a time, as planned. 20 minutes went by…nothing. Preliminary boarding began…nothing. General boarding began, and ended, not a single one of our group had joined us. Allie and I magnanimously decided that at final boarding we would abandon our new friends and leave them in a foreign country to their own devices.

Luckily for us, with seconds to spare, the entirety of our group rounded the corner, Allie and I decided not to tell the others about our hastily made decision (sorry Allie, I realize the irony), and we boarded the plane to Guilin.

From there it was simple: quick flight to Guilin, get picked up in the airport by my old pals MingMing and MoLin, ride a bus to CLI for about and hour, and prepare for another chapter.

Well, it wasn't easy, but we made it, and looking back, it was a good bit of fun.